


What Normal Isn’t

by amchara



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, M/M, Multi, Next Generation Winchester(s), Supernatural (TV) Next Generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-16 01:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13626159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amchara/pseuds/amchara
Summary: Two boys and a girl, roadtripping across the country. And despite the demon-hunting and vampire killing and poltergeist sightings, there are some teenage experiences that can’t be avoided. See: Sari’s life for details.





	What Normal Isn’t

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Lessons Learned](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/356454) by lyra_wing. 



> Another story rescued from the depths of livejournal. A follow-up to [With Eyes Wide Open](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13625799/chapters/31287486) and set in the wider 'Lessons Learned' 'verse. 
> 
> Originally posted December 30, 2008. 
> 
> A quick note: In this story, Sari is 16-17 years old, Michael is about 18-19 years old, and Lucas is 16-17 years old. So technically, there are references to underage sex but honestly, it's all tamer than any type of teen!sex shown on a CW show these days. 
> 
> _Original notes: ~8,500 words. Futurefic, SPN: The Next Generation. Riffing off of lyra_wing’s Lessons Learned ‘verse, and in the same set of stories as my own With Eyes Wide Open. The story stands alone, but reading the other stories might enhance the experience, if only for some of the random details. ;) Thanks to krisomniac for the beta!_
> 
> _For sasha_davidovna, my awesome spn_summerlove co-mod, who shares my love of het, minor characters, and the next generation of Supernatural hunters._

It wasn’t an easy life. There’s a trick to living with people, and an even better trick to living with them on the road, to sleeping in cheap motels and hunting humanity’s nightmares without going completely crazy. Add in that ‘people’ was defined as two horny teenage guys, and Sari wasn’t sure she was ‘so lucky’ despite what the girl at the cash had remarked on enviously.  
  
Then again, it wasn’t as if the girl had the slightest clue about what was involved in their ‘road trip’.  
  
“Lucky?” Lucas hooted, as Sari recounted the story in her best Georgian drawl.   
  
“Like, soooo lucky,” Sari said, and opened her eyes in her best imitation of wide-eyed innocence. “Anyway…”   
  
Lucas passed her the bag of skittles. “Was she on crack?”  
  
“Probably,” she answered. She peered into the bag and shook it. “You better’ve left me some orange ones.”  
  
“There’s a couple left,” he said, unconcerned. “Go buy your own bag if you want more… almost ready, Mike?”  
  
Michael’s head popped up above the hood of the Taurus. “Yeah, I think so. Give me another two minutes.” He leaned an elbow across the top, pushing back messy, sweaty bangs. He grinned at Sari.   
  
“That girl- she was probably talking about the company you’re traveling in.”  
  
“Huh?” Sari played dumb, but from experience she knew where the conversation was headed next. She just hoped she could play the game like she had used to do.   
  
“You know, those two hot guys you’re traveling with,” he said, a wicked smile playing about his lips.   
  
Sari rolled her eyes. “What can I say? Some people obviously have no taste.”  
  
“Oh, ouch- that hurt,” Michael said, placing his hands over his heart. “What do you say, Lucas? Sari doesn’t appreciate the two fine specimens she has, right?”  
  
Lucas snorted. “Because we’re like some giant pinned butterflies in her collection?”  
  
“Only if she wants us to be,” Michael said, waggling his eyebrows.  
  
Lucas groaned and Sari threw a skittle at him, trying to ignore the funny feeling in her stomach at his words.  
  
“We have an audience,” she said.  
  
Michael glanced up at the cashier girl pretending to clean the windows while she casually peeked out at them. “Should I take off my shirt?”  
  
“Should I go tell her about you and Lucas?” Sari upped the ante, leaning forward on the hood, daring him to go on.   
  
Michael took a moment to check out the girl in the window. He waved, and after a moment of stunned confusion, the girl waved back. He turned back to Sari with a sunny smile. “Sure, and maybe we’ll invite her to join us.”   
  
“Well, then I guess you won’t be using my Amex card for the room tonight. Try having a threesome in the car,” Sari said, trying to hide her own smile. Not so hard to get back in the rhythm after all…   
  
“Wait, are you not joining us tonight? But I thou-”  
  
“Guys,” Lucas interrupted, looking down at his watch “We're on deadline, remember?”   
  
Michael and Sari switched gears immediately. “Yeah, yeah,” Michael said, disappearing behind the hood again. “Almost done.”  
  
“What time is it?” Sari asked.  
  
“Just past 4:30. We have about three hours before the sun goes down,” Lucas said.  
  
Five minutes later they were pulling out of the gas station and back onto the freeway. Sari was curled up behind driver’s seat, her duffel bag beside her. She leaned her head back and found the groove she had hollowed out all those months ago. Almost felt like she had never been gone.   
  
She twisted her head around and snuck a glance back at the gas station, not exactly sure why she felt compelled to look. Wondering briefly what it would be like to live the life of those girls back in those towns. Watching people pass through.  
  
But the feeling didn’t last very long, as there was business to attend to. “So, what do you think we’ll need?” she asked. She unzipped the bag beside her, letting it part smoothly and silently. The smell of gun oil and old leather drifted up as she bent over the bag, sorting through the neatly wrapped packets, cases of bullets and knife sheaths.   
  
“Heavy duty,” Lucas said, turning around in the passenger’s seat to face her. “The signs that Bobby sent us indicate a major demon player. Maybe more than one.” In the late afternoon light his face looked older and more serious than she remembered.  
  
“Out of a hellmouth?” she asked.  
  
Lucas hesitated. “Maybe.”  
  
They sat in silence for a few miles, Sari pulling out and discarding possible knife combinations, Lucas fiddling with the car’s radio. Michael drove on, his arm slung casually slung over the back of Lucas’s seat.   
  
“Glad you’re back?” Sari could see Michael’s eyes following her in rearview mirror.  
  
She took a deep breath and settled back against the seat. “Yeah,” she answered.  
  
“First job back tonight,” he said, and Sari knew what was coming next.   
  
“Yep.”  
  
“Think you’re rusty?”   
  
Sari bit down hard on the angry response that wanted to erupt from her mouth. She had been waiting for this to come up the past couple days. “I spent the last eight months training with the Winchesters, and it’s not as if Kat and I didn’t go out and tackle local hunts while we were there. So, no. Not rusty, thanks for asking.”  
  
“Just wondering.” Michael’s voice was hard to read. “This isn’t going to be an easy one, so… no one would blame you for sitting it out. If you wanted.”  
  
Lucas looked uncomfortable when Sari raised an eyebrow at him, mouthing, ‘what’s gotten into him?’ He shook his head slightly. “We’re just glad you’re back, both of us,” he said out loud. “The three of us, back together again, like old times.” He smiled. It was the same old Lucas smile, but there was the slight twist and shadow in his eyes.   
  
“Yeah, alright,” Sari said, irritated and slightly freaked out by their continued insistence on keeping her in the dark. This was no ordinary job they were heading towards and she wished that they’d just trust her. Like they used to.   
  
Lucas didn’t hear the message in her voice.   
  
Like old times, he said.   
  
_MichaelLucasSari._  
  
*  
  
It hadn’t started out that way. Before the smoking engine on the way to Danville, she had been determined to do it on her own, forget the past and Lawrence and the dead. And Michael and Lucas had their own connection, forged by circumstances and a relationship that was based on loss and the fact that their lives were just fucking weird.   
  
Sure, there was the whole conversation starter where she finally found some others who went through the same messed up childhood, and then turned out to keep on that fucked-up path… something to start with, at least.  
  
*   
  
“So, where are you going in Virginia?” Michael had asked her the first time she hopped in the backseat, after they all determined they were headed in a similar direction.   
  
“Danville,” she replied evenly, clutching her duffle bag tight, the reassuring shape of the tiny hidden Beringer’s holster pressing against her chest.  
  
In the front seat, the boys exchanged looks, and Sari waited while they had a quick whispered conversation. She didn’t see what the big deal was, it wasn’t that far off the interstate as far as she could tell.   
  
“You know someone there?”  
  
She considered lying, but decided it wouldn’t make a difference if she told the truth this time. She was far enough away from Lawrence now. “These brothers, their last name is Winchester.”  
  
Silence in the front seat. “Okay, now this is just fucking weird,” Michael said.   
  
“What?” she asked.   
  
Lucas just shrugged at Michael, and then he leaned around and pointed up with a finger.   
  
Sari arched her neck and the devil’s trap above her seat filled her view.   
  
“Oh,” she said, inanely. Of all the people she had expected to hitch a ride with… hunters hadn’t even occurred to her. And she hadn’t thought hunters younger than thirty even existed. “You guys get many demons in your backseat?”  
  
“You’d be surprised,” Lucas answered her.  
  
“At least we won’t have to hide the weapons in the trunk from you,” Michael said.   
  
*   
  
That got them through the first couple of days and through Michael and Lucas’s revelation to Sari that there were still gates to hell littering the country, waiting to be opened to unleash the demonic horde, and oh yeah, only a few people actually knew about them. And in knowing about these giant holes to hell, it technically made those few responsible for them. Responsible, as in sacrificing oneself if they ever opened up again.   
  
Whatever, she figured it was kinda par for the course in relation to the rest of her life anyway.  
  
She had a feeling that wasn’t the attitude she was supposed to have at sixteen but she also thought any chance of having a normal sixteen-year-old life had been burnt away in Stull cemetery – the last time a hellmouth had opened up. And even though she didn’t ask them, she thought that Lucas and Michael might understand that. Hell, they had to understand if they were on this road, doing this job.  
  
They traveled through North Carolina, doing a couple of salt’n’burns and tackling a small nest of vampires. She watched Lucas and Michael work together with a smooth efficiency, an ease born of familiarity and a long partnership, tossing weapons around without looking at each other, trading positions without missing a beat.  
  
During the first few hunts she stayed back, acting as the look-out or keeping watch over their supplies. She knew that they were watching her, evaluating her. She didn’t blame them; she would’ve done the same in their position.  
  
It was the vampire gig where she got to prove herself, decapitating a vamp that escaped the initial blockade they had put up. It tried to chomp on Michael’s back while he was finishing up another one, and Sari didn’t stop to think, not until she was staring at the body and the separated head.   
  
Lucas bumped her shoulder gently on the way to the Taurus after they finished cleaning up the mess in the barn. “Nice job.”  
  
“Thanks,” She looked over to where Michael was lifting up their almost-empty drum of dead man’s blood. He nodded tiredly over at her, and she nodded back.  
  
When she laid her machete beside theirs in the bag back at the motel, she thought she could get use to this, hunting with others.  
  
The next hunt, Lucas shifted to look-out and she joined Michael on point. Before they went out, Sari decided to share the contents of her duffle bag.   
  
“Whoa,” Lucas said, a stunned look on his face, when he finally finished going through all the weaponry and spell books wrapped inside. “This… has got to be the best collection I’ve seen outside of Bobby’s house. I don’t even know if the Winchesters have some of these things. Don’t you think?” he asked, turning to Michael.   
  
Michael was examining the runes on a long Japanese-style knife. “Yeah,” he answered distractedly. He pulled out a matching pair of wrist sheathes for four tiny blades made of blue, wavy steel. “Can I use these?”  
  
“Sure,” Sari said, but she was beginning to regret her decision to share. The looks that Michael and Lucas were sharing between them reminded her that there could be some unwanted questions coming up.   
  
But the questions didn’t come in the next couple of days. And when Michael drove past the turn-off for Danville, to the Winchesters’ house, she didn’t say anything. There was a kelpie sighting further up on the coast, and they only had a few days to trap it before the full moon. More people would die if they waited another month.  
  
And to be honest, she didn’t mind putting off the visit to the Winchesters, for other reasons.   
  
With the unspoken agreement that the duo had now become a trio, the next challenge they had to figure out were living arrangements. The first week traveling together, at some extremely shitty motel in North Carolina, Sari pretended to sleep while ignoring the muffled groans and heavy breathing coming from the other bed. During the day she noticed both Lucas and Michael tried to avoid any incidences where they might come in close contact-- in a way that made it completely obvious they were avoiding each other on purpose.   
  
“Bagel?” Lucas offered Sari, when he came back from the diner, his hands filled with coffee and breakfast.   
  
“Thanks.” Sari took a cup from his outstretched hand and a crumpled bag. Michael was standing right beside her, but Lucas marched past and set it down on their motel room’s table. Michael waited until Lucas had stepped back before making a beeline for the coffee.   
  
Sari rolled her eyes. _Boys_. They thought they were being so subtle.   
  
It was also getting to the point of ridiculousness, and she tried to find the ideal situation where she could let them know she didn’t really care what they did in bed (well, as long as she wasn’t witness to it).  
  
Ultimately, she decided to go with the straight-on approach.   
  
“I’m not asleep, you know,” she said conversationally one night when the rustle of covers and the rather distracting slurping sounds overpowered any awkwardness she might feel. The agonizingly empty silence immediately following her announcement made her grin in the dark. The rest of the night was _very_ quiet and peaceful.   
  
In the morning over breakfast, with a pale Lucas, a smirking Michael, and her own uncontrollable blushing (she had to admit, in daylight it was a little hard to look them in the eye) they hashed out a sleeping schedule and bed rotation to satisfy all parties. And if it wasn’t satisfactory at all times… well, she didn’t mind sleeping in the Taurus sometimes (especially as it usually resulted in Lucas buying her an extra large Starbucks frappucchino or chocolate donut the next morning.)  
  
But even after figuring out stuff like that, everything wasn’t always sunshine and puppies between them. Hunters kept their secrets close, and their trio was no exception.  
  
Sari preferred it that way. She didn’t share the origins of her duffel bag, and she didn’t ask them why Lucas became upset whenever Michael would make an X-men joke, or why they both never spoke about their families.   
  
They had already heard about it, but she never told them any more than bare bones details of the night at Stull. The memories --of Missouri’s no-nonsense attitude to hunting and Jean-Marc’s patience and tutoring -- weren’t ones that she shared casually, even if she was starting to trust both Lucas and Michael. But she figured everything would either come out eventually. Or it wouldn’t. Either way worked for her.   
  
*   
  
In the end, hers and Lucas’s secrets were revealed at the same time.  
  
They had been camping in a farmer’s field just outside an Ohio state park, and after a night of decomposing zombies and witch doctors, she hadn’t been in the mood for surprises. And Lucas gathering up and floating a bunch of their spent bullets in the air like some freak from the Matrix really didn’t help her calm.   
  
“Yeah…” Lucas said, carefully keeping his hands where she could see them. “Um, I got this—um, talent. I guess you could call it that. With metal.” He eyed the gun in her hands and her steady gaze as she aimed it at his face.   
  
“Not demonic, I swear,” he said.  
  
“Prove it,” she said, gritting her teeth. She watched the metal bullets float beside him in the air, bobbing like tiny bugs. “I’ve never met anyone – without demonic taint - who could do stuff like that.”  
  
“Lucas?” Michael’s voice came from behind them. “Why is Sari pointing a gun at you?”  
  
“One guess, she hasn’t had good experiences with psychic powers,” Lucas called, still concentrating his attention on Sari.  
  
“You could say that,” Sari sneered. She watched Michael move up slowly in her peripheral view. “Stay back, Michael.”  
  
“You do know that Sam Winchester has a similar talent, don’t you?” Lucas asked.  
  
“Yeah, but it’s not telekinetic. Missour-” She shut her mouth, determined not to say anything more.   
  
Her attention wavered for a moment, and she was suddenly aware of two very important facts; first, Michael’s fist in contact with her cheek and second, the ground rushing up to meet her.   
  
When she came to, she was handcuffed to a front door handle of the Taurus, with Lucas and Michael watching from a safe distance. They didn’t say anything, and she tried to push down the panic that was threatening to rise. After a couple minutes of observation and quiet whispering too low to understand, Lucas grabbed the bucket of water standing beside him and doused her with it.   
  
The water was freezing cold and she swore loudly as it soaked into her clothes. She glared at them, shivering in the wind. “Satisfied? You didn’t have to use holy water. Or knock me out,” she said, rubbing her cheek where Michael’s punch had landed.  
  
“Sorry,” Michael called to her, and sounded like he meant it. Michael and Lucas traded glances with each other, as if weighing their options. Lucas nodded.  
  
“You gonna point any more guns at us?” Michael asked, skepticism coloring his voice. “’Cause there’s no chance in hell we’re letting you go if that’s the case.”  
  
“Cross my heart and swear,” Sari said, her teeth starting to chatter. “As long you prove yourselves the same way.”  
  
Michael shrugged and reached over into the other bucket, and then held his hand up. No steam rose from his skin, he didn't even wince. Lucas did the same and then started walking towards her, key in hand.   
  
“Wait.” Sari thought of something else. “How do I know that really was holy water?” she asked suspiciously.  
  
“D’you really think if we were demons, we’d go through all that trouble just to fool you?” Lucas pointed out. He knelt down to unlock the handcuffs and extended a hand to help her up. She ignored it.   
  
A hurt look crossed his face and he moved back to where Michael was standing. The awkward silence stretched on. “Come on, we should get to a rest stop before you freeze,” Michael finally said.  
  
Two hours later, with her hands curled around a mug of hot chocolate, she listened as Lucas explained.  
  
“Sam was training me,” he said earnestly, his nose almost as red as his hair as he leaned into his large coffee. “It’s not evil—well, it could be used in that way but it’s not like that for me. I use it on hunts, sometimes. I would’ve told you eventually, but I didn’t know how you would react. Most hunters…” he trailed off, watching her closely. “You know- they don’t like it.”   
  
“So, bad experience with psychic powers?” Michael guessed, watching her face.  
  
Sari nodded stiffly. “Yeah. In Stull, there was…” She stopped. She gazed down at her duffel bag and she made her decision. She looked back up. Both boys were staring.  
  
“In Lawrence… when I was little, this psychic, Missouri Mosely used to baby-sit me and my brother sometimes. She knew people. Hunters.”  
  
Sari opened up her bag and pulled out a knife with a cabochon hilt. She stared it, and willed herself to keep talking. “There was this hunter. Jean-Marc, from Louisiana. He was one of the best supernatural weapons makers there was. Missouri said the rumor in the community was that he was Sam Colt’s descendant. He taught me stuff, about hunting, about weapons, every time he came to visit Missouri.”  
  
She bit her lip, trying to ignore the rush of memories she had tried to suppress the past two years as they flooded into her mind. “But he had a secret, some special talent that helped him make his weapons. But it was tainted and it killed him… a lot of other people, too—made him betray where they were hiding in the cemetery. He helped the demons find us. Missouri said… said he couldn’t help it. She said it was the tainted talent, not Jean-Marc who betrayed us.”  
  
Sari looked over at the boys. “I… inherited his weapons after the battle. The ones that were left.” She gestured to the bag. “No one else wanted them. Missouri said I should have them, so I do.”  
  
“I’m not like that, honest,” Lucas said. “I’m not lying to you, Sari.”  
  
“How can you know?” she whispered. “It… it was like a switch, in Jean-Marc. He didn’t choose it either.”  
  
Lucas’s mouth opened, and then closed. “I don’t, I guess,” he finally answered. “But I trust Sam, and Dean. And I trust Mike would stop me if I ever went rogue or anything.” His mouth twisted in a funny line. “You gotta trust me.”  
  
She looked at both of them a long while, and finally she nodded. “Okay, I’ll try.”  
  
But it was hard. At first, she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t taken off at the next rest stop, thumbed a ride back to Virginia, but eventually she stopped flinching when metal moved around Lucas. She’d even crack a smile or laugh when he’d mischievously lift up the salt shaker in a restaurant and dumped it in Michael’s coffee when he wasn’t looking, winking at Sari and taking on the face of perfect innocence when Michael took a sip and then spat it all out over the table. She didn’t think she’d ever feel completely comfortable about it, but she had to admit that his ability saved them during a lot of tight calls.  
  
*  
  
Michael’s secret came out a little more slowly. As the months stretched out, Sari noticed that every once in a while times when he’d get into moods and go off for hours on his own. Lucas would usually leave him alone in those times, so she did as well.  
  
“What’s his problem?” Sari finally asked one day after Michael had stalked to the door, only stopping to tuck his gun into the back of his jeans at the small of his back. Sari hoped he wasn’t about to go off and kill someone. There were enough people missing in this town already.  
  
Lucas shrugged uneasily.  
  
“You know what it is,” Sari said. “What’s up with him?”  
  
“Not my secret to tell,” was all Lucas replied, but he looked worried.  
  
That night, Michael started screaming in his sleep. Sari couldn’t make out the words but he seemed to repeat one name over and over. She sat up in bed and turned on the light.  
  
“Mike,” Lucas was standing over him, shaking his shoulder gently. “Mike, wake up, man.”  
  
Michael wouldn’t wake up and as Lucas shook him harder, he swung a fist up and Lucas let out a muttered curse.  
  
“Sari, can you help me?” Together they managed to wrestle Michael into the bathroom, where Lucas turned on the sputtering shower and thrust Michael’s head under it.   
  
“Asher,” Michael moaned. “Asher, I’m sorry.” He sank down to his knees on the ground, huddled over as if he was in pain.  
  
Lucas bent over him, rubbing his back gently. “Mike. Hey, it’s over. We got the fuckers who killed him, remember? In Minnesota? ”  
  
“Lucas?” From her vantage point at the door, Sari could see Michael’s eyes blink open, and he looked around his surroundings with confusion.  
  
“We’re in the bathroom,” Lucas said. “You were screaming and I couldn’t wake you up.”  
  
“Oh,” Michael said warily, and his eyes flicked around the room, finally landing on Sari.  
  
“Sari helped me drag you in here,” Lucas told him.   
  
Sari stayed in the doorway, silently waiting for one of them to explain the situation.   
  
“You wondering what this is about?” Michael asked her, embarrassed. He stood up from the floor and grabbed a towel, wiping away the water that was dripping down his neck and chest.   
  
“Yeah, kinda,” she answered. She shrugged. “I’d like to be able to sleep tonight, preferably without earplugs.”  
  
Mike nodded, distracted. “I’m going back to bed,” he said, throwing the towel on the floor and pushing past her and Lucas, back into the dark room.   
  
Sari looked down at the towel, and then at Lucas. “He must be upset,” she commented mildly. “He didn’t go all OCD about hanging up the towel like he normally does.”   
  
“Yeah,” Lucas said, avoiding her eyes. “I’m, um, heading back to bed too.”  
  
Sari sighed and followed Lucas out of the bathroom.   
  
*  
  
The next morning, Michael pushed a pair of earplugs beside her breakfast plate.   
  
“Thanks,” she mumbled, her mouth full of waffle. She went back to concentrating on breakfast. A couple of minutes later, she realized he was watching her.   
  
“What?” she finally asked, flushing underneath his gaze.   
  
Michael let out a hollow laugh and shook his head. “You have got to be one of the weirdest girls I know, Sari. You’re never curious about anything.” Sari didn’t know whether it was admiration or scorn in his voice.   
  
Sari set down her fork. “I’m curious,” she said. “But I thought... I just don’t like to pry, since I don’t want it done to me in return.”  
  
“Fair enough,” Michael said. “But you might as well know about Asher. He… he’s the reason why I started hunting.” He settled back against the booth. “Maybe it’ll even be cathartic to talk to someone other than Lucas about it,” he said wryly. “Unless you don’t want to hear the morbid tale…I wouldn’t blame you.”  
  
“I’m listening,” she said cautiously. On the other side, she could see Lucas playing with a penny, spinning it with his finger, and using his power to speed it up so it traveled around the table like a mini-twister. But his eyes kept flicking to Michael.   
  
She listened as Michael told her about his brother being sacrificed by an occult group, and how it was the reason why he went to the Winchesters in the first place. That was where he met up with Lucas and they started hunting together. He told her about how they had tracked down Asher’s killers and finally got justice for his brother’s death.  
  
He didn’t talk about his mom, or the reason why he was still hunting. Or why he hadn’t gone back to his old life. Then again, she thought she maybe understood why.   
  
*  
  
After that, there wasn’t much else to hide. Living on the road, hunting together, it was like family, Sari figured. You couldn’t avoid the pitfalls and secrets and little hurts but you also got the best of times too. Christmas at Bobby’s house, the screaming match with Michael in Las Vegas that had her hitch-hiking halfway to Reno before they both cooled down enough to apologize, the evil mermaids and awesome surfing in Socal and then New Year’s in Tijuana (she was never drinking tequila again), or the cold Wyoming night where Lucas lost almost a pint of blood from a harpy’s scratches…   
  
But if there ever was a point that one could get completely comfortable with people, then there was that point when it became so comfortable, that it became… uncomfortable. Whenever she wanted to hurt her head, Sari tried to pinpoint where and when it started. She thought it might’ve been when Kat joined them for the drive west back to Virginia.  
  
It had been more than eight months since they had started traveling together, and adding someone into the mix produced… interesting results. Kat fit in for the most part, but there were certain times when she didn’t quite get their routine. Like the one day with laundry…  
  
*   
  
“Whoa. Should I um, come back?”  
  
“Hmmm?” Mike asked, from where he was lounging on his bed, cleaning his revolver.  
  
Sari looked up from where she was sitting beside him and saw Kat standing in the doorway, holding the pack of maps and supplies.  
  
Kat navigated her way up through the mess on the floor. “I’ll just grab my laptop…Jesus!” She caught herself from tripping over Lucas’s long legs, as she made her way around the bed.   
  
“Something wrong?” Michael asked with a smirk. Sari watched as Kat slowly turned around, her face red. Ever since the succubus incident at Redburn College, there had been a sort of tension between Kat and Michael. Lucas and Sari were laying bets on who cried uncle first.   
  
“Nope,” Kat answered promptly, but her voice was too loud and unnatural. “What’s um, happening?”  
  
“We had to do laundry,” Sari told her, wondering what the big deal was. As Kat's eyes darted between her and the others, Sari suddenly saw the three of them through Kat’s eyes. Sari looked down at the ratty bra she was wearing, with the hole wearing through on the left side, her Hello Kitty underwear. Lucas was in his Spiderman boxers and thin wifebeater and Michael… well, he was wearing the only clean pair of underwear he had left, which could be classed in the ‘tighty-whitey’ category.   
  
“Aw, right,” Kat said, after a moment, and there was a hint of relief in her voice. “Got it. Laundry calls.” She bent down to get their laptop, avoiding looking over at the bed.  
  
“And gun cleaning can be a very dirty job,” Michael said, his smirk growing wider. He threw his arm around Sari’s shoulder, pulling her closer. Sari thought he was determined to make Kat blush again. This time the only reaction he got was the finger and Kat’s back as she beat a quick retreat.   
  
“What, you don’t want to join us?” Michael called. Sari elbowed him in the ribs, and he let go and leaned back, laughing. “What do you think, Lucas? Am I winning?”  
  
Lucas peeked his head over the edge of the bed. “Winning? You’re trying to scare her off, aren’t you?”  
  
“Naw, I don’t think she scares that easy,” Michael said. “Hints of an orgy between the three of us are tame. She was just surprised.”  
  
Sari slid off the bed, and went over to her clothing bag. She felt around and slipped on a t-shirt and jean shorts that had zombie blood staining the front, but were otherwise wearable.   
  
“Aww, c’mon Sari, don’t be a spoilsport just ‘cause Kat’s being a priss-”  
  
She shut the door on Michael’s entreaties, and went to find Kat.   
  
“Hey,” Sari said awkwardly, sitting down beside Kat in the plastic chairs outside their room. “What you saw-”  
  
“No, it’s cool, I get it,” said Kat, shutting down her laptop and turning to face her. “I was just surprised. You guys are road-tripping. It’s tight quarters, and it’s natural that…” She didn’t finish the sentence. “I don’t know when I became such a prude, anyway.” She laughed and nudged Sari.   
  
“No, it’s not like that, honestly,” Sari said, certain that Kat was still misunderstanding the situation.   
  
“Honestly, Sari, I definitely get it,” Kat said, and winked at her.   
  
But Sari wasn’t so sure Kat got it. She knew little incidents like this one highlighted the fact that what her, Lucas and Michael did, wasn’t normal.   
  
Kat was a good barometer of normalcy. There were times Sari thought they needed the reminder – in between bouts of gun-cleaning, monster killing, demon-exorcising, stitching each other up, and scrubbing blood out of their clothes at 2 a.m. in some sketchy 24-hour Laundromat.  
  
Plus, Sari liked having her around. Kat was another girl to talk to, and sometimes, a welcome break from the constant guy talk. Sari could hold her own with smack talk but there were times when she needed the break. With Kat it was almost like having a big sister around. Even if she sometimes did hint about certain uncomfortable truths and was unusually perspective about certain things when they had their ‘girl chats’.  
  
But when Sari was being honest with herself, she knew that Kat wasn’t the reason everything became… weird. She might’ve provided the lens that made the situation clearer, but it hadn’t started with her arrival.  
  
It had started happening about six months after they started traveling together, building so slowly, she'd barely noticed it happening at all. There was the time when Lucas bent over her when they were studying maps, his breath on the back of her neck and his lips mesmerizing in the corner of her eye. Or when Michael rubbed her shoulders after a long day of driving and she felt tiny shivers running down, much further down her body than she wanted them to go.  
  
Or perhaps the most embarrassing was the dream where she had a front row seat to Michael and Lucas getting it on. Not that she hadn’t walked into the beginning of the scene many a time (hazards of motel living). No, the part that made Sari still squirm was when in the dream, Michael stopped kissing Lucas’s swollen lips, lifted an eyebrow and point-blank asked her. “Aren’t you coming to join us?”  
  
God. Talk about embarrassing. For a week she wasn’t able to look either of them in the eye. It’s not as if it had never been joked about, but there was a huge difference between joking and actually taking them seriously.  
  
She wasn’t an idiot—she knew what they were, despite all the looks that girls would direct towards Michael, and sometimes Lucas, and how they both ignored the attention (or were oblivious to it). She told herself it was because she was a teenage girl, and being constantly in view of two boys in love didn’t help matters. Especially since they had one another to turn to when they needed it.   
  
Sure, there had been other boys around— plenty of fooling around at the campgrounds and towns they stopped in, and that one unmemorable time when she lost her virginity to some blond surfer guy in Socal. But nobody with whom she could really let her guard down. It was lonely sometimes. Boohoo, cry a river. Whatever, they were her problems and she had to find a way to deal with them. By herself, without Lucas or Michael or Kat. She didn’t want to complicate things. But she also didn’t want to be on her own again, didn’t want to always be alone. And she couldn’t go back home.   
  
*  
  
A solution came up when the Taurus finally turned off on that freeway exit. Sari figured she’d stay with Kat and train at the Winchester’s house in Danville.  
  
In any case, the visit changed the status quo. Sam and Dean weren’t the tall shadowy men that she remembered when they first came into her life, and they weren’t the grim-faced warriors they had been when they came to close the hellmouth in Stull. They were older, and scarred now, Sam wheeling in, and Dean following with his marked arms. Their eyes sharply perspective, they listened and treated Sari and the others as adults. They listened without comment when Kat told them about her experience in her old apartment. And when Sari, Michael and Lucas told them about their experience with the demon in Illinois, and how it seemed to know their personal histories.  
  
“You’ve probably made a name for yourselves,” Dean said grimly. “Down there.” Despite his tone, there was almost a proud grin on his face. “Demons didn’t like the name Winchester—once they knew who we were, they’d be gunning for us any chance they got.”  
  
“Until we sent most of them back to hell and retired here,” Sam reminded him.  
  
“Do you think it could mean there’s something… someone on the rise down there?” Lucas asked Sam.  
  
It was Dean who answered. “Maybe… Hard to say.” He looked over at Sam. “Storm’s coming,” he said cryptically, and Sam nodded back, his face full with a terrible sorrow.  
  
But they didn’t – wouldn’t – explain what they meant by it. “We don’t know ourselves,” Sam said brusquely, when Michael tried to press them on it.  
  
Despite treating them as adults, the Winchesters did ask them to do one thing when they hit the road again. They all took turns disappearing into Sam’s study, and Sari found out it was hard to get anything past Sam and Dean.  
  
“Your mom called,” Sam said, after they sat in an awkward silence for a few moments.  
  
Sari said nothing. She’d thought this might come up, but she wasn’t about to give them any ammo to use against her.  
  
“We know what happened in Lawrence,” Dean said, and there was an oddly gentle tone to his voice. “Jenny told us about what happened at your school- with your principal.”   
  
Tears threatened to emerge from the corner of her eyes. “Then you know why I can’t go back,” she said roughly. “I’m surprised that she isn’t here demanding that I come back and face the charges.”  
  
“She didn’t say anything about you coming back, Sari,” Dean said. “She just wanted to know where you were. And attempted murder isn’t exactly nothing.”  
  
“He was possessed,” Sari whispered fiercely. “He could’ve hurt Richie and the other kids. I had to do something— and besides, what with everything going on in Lawrence…”  
  
“What’s going on in Lawrence?” Sam asked sharply.  
  
“You don’t know?” Sari asked. “After Stull, it left a…a… stain, I guess you could call it, like the one on your old house when you guys first came back. Bad spirits, demons, anything evil, they’re attracted to Lawrence. The principal was just one of them. I took care of it, but...”   
  
Sam and Dean exchanged a glance, and Sari was reminded of Michael and Lucas. They were having their own private conversation. “I thought my monitoring covered that area…” Sam murmured under his breath to Dean.   
  
“Can I stay here a while? Like Kat is? Learn from you guys?” she asked, seizing on the opportunity to ask the most important question while they were distracted.   
  
Sam took a few moments before answering the question, staring off into the distance. “Yes,” he finally answered. His distracted gaze told her that there was something he wasn’t saying, but Sari suspected he wasn’t about to tell her about it yet.   
  
Dean nodded. “As long as you’re prepared to work for it,” he told her.   
  
“Oh, I am,” Sari promised.  
  
*  
  
“We’re going to head north next to visit Lucas’s mom,” Michael told her after they had been at the Winchester’s house for three days. They sat on the porch of the old house, a cooler of beer between them. Dean had put it there after they came in from fixing his fences. Kat and Lucas sat on metal bucket in front of them on the lawn. “Find a few hunts up there, and maybe let Lucas finish school.”  
  
Sari nodded and took a sip of her beer. “I’m not going,” she said.  
  
“What? Why not?” Michael was surprised, and Sari felt a tiny sting of relief that he hadn’t been expecting her decision.  
  
“I’m staying- I need to learn more. It’s why I was headed here in the first place.” It was a good excuse, if not the whole truth. “Who better to learn hunting from than from the Winchesters?” Originally she had been heading east just to get away, find a new place to fit in. Funny how that had worked out.   
  
Michael shook his head, a tiny frown between his eyebrows.  
  
Lucas didn’t say anything, just stared at Sari from under his overgrown bangs.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Kat said. “Sari and I’ll have plenty of good times here.”  
  
They sat in silence for a few moments.   
  
“We’ll be back in the spring,” Michael said suddenly.  
  
Sari smiled tentatively at him. “Come back and pick me up then.” It would be enough time to think and get things sorted out, she told herself.   
  
And after a winter of waking up and training every day at six a.m., with weapons and book-learning and getting her GED at the local high school, Sari thought she’d thought it through enough. She could face being alone, as long as she fit in _somewhere_.   
  
*   
  
It was early June when they came back. She’d just hung up from a phone call from Kat, who’d been excitedly telling her about Boston, and this local hunter named Emily who she’d met, when she heard the rumble of an engine outside. Her bag was ready and packed and she flew down the hallway. She forced herself to slow down as she came into the front room.  
  
“Missed us?” Michael asked and the trademark smirk was there in full force. Behind him, Lucas towered another couple of inches taller than the last time she'd seen him, but still with the same shaggy hair and crooked smile.  
  
“Not at all,” she answered but her heart beat faster in her chest.   
  
“You’re such a bad liar,” Lucas said, grinning.   
  
“We’re heading down south, maybe ending up in New Orleans. There’s supposed to be a lot of demonic activity down that way right now, according to Bobby. You turn into a homebody yet, or are you ready to hit the road again?” It was said in a joking tone, but Sari wasn’t so sure that Michael was joking. She could feel him staring when he thought she wasn’t looking, but when she tried to meet his eyes, he kept dropping them.   
  
“No chance you’re leaving me behind,” she said, pushing aside any doubts.   
  
They spent the night talking shop with Sam and Dean and the next morning they hit the road. It wasn’t the same dynamics as it had been before – she could feel it, but it was close enough. She was glad to be back, and she tried to ignore any awkwardness that cropped up, tried to push through the silences that went on too long, ignore the glances between Michael and Lucas that shut her out.   
  
Three days into their trip, they still were tracking down their first hunt and Sari knew with certainty that they were keeping secrets from her. She noticed that Michael dismissed a river spirit hunt in Tennessee, and that Lucas kept the paper away from her one morning. She had already read it through and knew that there was an article with enough evidence to suggest an angry spirit haunting a house.  
  
It was almost like they were waiting for something bigger, some big sign. When they turned south on the 85, towards Atlanta, the pit in Sari’s stomach grew larger, and she finally knew with certainty what they had planned for the summer. What Sam and Dean had been discussing all winter and dismissing as impossible to accomplish. But somehow the three of them, Michael, Lucas, Sari, were going to attempt a fight that the greatest hunters in the country had thought impossible. Figured.  
  
*  
  
“This is it?” Sari asked. They had pulled into a long driveway on the outskirts of the city. The private house of apparently some big real-estate agent in Atlanta. Who was currently being possessed by some big Kahuna demon.   
  
Michael nodded. “Okay, so here’s the plan…” He pulled out a map and blueprint of the house. It was supposed to be an easy snatch’n’exorcise, other than the potentially powerful demon, and Lucas and Michael told her that there’d be some important spell books in the house that they could use.   
  
She didn’t believe them for a second.   
  
“Sari, you’re on look-out.”   
  
Of course she was. Now wasn’t the time to complain, but she was going to give them hell afterwards. They crept forward through the dense greenery surrounding the estate, and Sari settled herself in beside a large sycamore tree, while the boys went on ahead to the house, loaded down with as many supernatural weapons as they could carry.   
  
They were barely gone when the crickets and other comforting night sounds died down and an eerie, still silence replaced it. Sari pulled out her cellphone, pressed a few buttons and then hung up. A few seconds later it buzzed in her hand and she put it to her ear.   
  
“Guys,” she whispered as she scanned the dark treeline. “Be careful. I think there may be more demons here than we planned on.”  
  
“I think you may be right, little girl.”   
  
She whirled around, and aimed her gun at the demon standing behind her. But even as she did so, she could see other flashes of red eyes and swirls of dark smoke appearing in a tightening circle around her.   
  
“Darling, that gun isn’t going to do much good against us,” the demon drawled as it stalked closer.   
  
Sari hesitated for a moment, and the demon grinned and reached out a hand towards her.   
  
She fired.   
  
*   
  
She scrubbed at the last blood splatters off her face with the thin, white motel facecloth, noting the dead look of her eyes in the mirror. She shuddered and looked down, her stomach churning.  
  
The knock on the door made her jump.  
  
“Sari?” It was Lucas. “Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” she called. She thought she hid the tremor of her voice well enough. “Be out in a second.” She looked around in the bathroom, and the bloody pile of cloths on the floor made her stomach roil again queasily. So much blood. Human blood.   
  
She came out in her towel and stumbled towards the nearest bed. She lay on top of the comforter, trying to stop her body from shaking. From where she lay she could see Michael cleaning their guns, his movements almost mechanical as he checked them, polished them and put them away. Lucas was pacing back and forth in the front of the room, checking the locks and salt lines in front of the windows every few seconds.  
  
They both snuck glances over their shoulders at her when they thought she didn’t notice. She turned her back on them, and closed her eyes, willing herself into oblivion. It didn’t work, and she considered the sleeping pills she knew they had in their first aid kit.   
  
Behind her, she felt the bed dip down, and she tried not to tense as a lightly freckled arm came over and rested on top of hers. Lucas’s body curled around hers and her trembling eased as his body heat sunk through her thin towel. She could hear Michael moving around in the room. He shut off the light, but instead of going to the other bed, he carefully settled himself on the other side of her, facing inwards.  
  
In a different situation, she might have been ecstatic about this arrangement, but tonight all she felt was emptiness.  
  
“That was a bad one,” Lucas whispered into her ear. “We all felt it.”  
  
“I killed them,” she said, thinking of the lifeless, staring eyes of the no-longer-possessed-people. “All of them.”   
  
Michael’s hand tightened on her own. “You didn’t have a choice.”  
  
“I did. We always have a choice. But if I hadn’t done it, it wouldn’t have helped us close the hellmouths for good, would it?” A few tears started trickling down her face.  
  
She could feel Lucas tense up. “How do you—”  
  
“I’m not stupid, and again, I was with the Winchesters, not on a fucking vacation these past few months, Lucas.”  
  
He was quiet for a few moments. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I know that’s a shitty apology, coming after the fact. We weren’t sure when we were going to tell you, but-”  
  
Michael lifted up a finger, gingerly brushing away a tear. “But we should’ve told you as soon as we came to Danville.”   
  
“If this is going to work, if we’re going to succeed, it’ll be a tough summer ahead,” Lucas told her. “Nothing… crossing the line, but it’s going to mean being ruthless, thinking of the end goal and the lives we’ll save if it works, rather than the collateral damage.”  
  
“I thought it might,” she said. “And I’m not running away from this. I’m staying.” She just hadn’t been prepared for this night, not yet anyway.  
  
“Good,” Lucas said, and Michael echoed him.  
  
They lay there in the dark, and despite herself, Sari began to relax in the strange rightness of the situation. The horror of the night’s hunt retreated back beyond the broad backs and cocoon of warmth she lay in. But one thing still bugged her.  
  
“I’m still the same Sari; you could’ve just let me know. I haven’t changed that much.”  
  
To her surprise, both Michael and Lucas let out small, tired chuckles. “Yeah, in some ways you’re the same. But in others- oh, I think you’ve changed a bit,” Michael said, and to prove his point, he let his hand wander down and follow the curve of her butt.   
  
Their close arrangements meant that Lucas could feel it too. “Mike, not tonight,” he hissed in horror, slapping his hand away.  
  
Sari giggled, her tired brain wondering if she was already dreaming. “I thought gay guys weren’t supposed to notice things like girl’s butts.”  
  
“Well, you might be an exception,” Michael said, and Sari noticed that his face and lips were now very close to hers. "Also, I think there's also something called being bi..." She closed her eyes, and felt his lips touch hers, fleetingly, before pulling away. His hands tightened around her waist. Not to be outdone, Lucas kissed the back of her neck with butterfly kisses, and shivers ran pleasantly down her spine.   
  
“This is a dream,” she murmured.  
  
Lucas laughed, and it was a reassuring rumble against her back. “You’ve been dreaming about this?”  
  
“Ummm, maybe,” she said cagily.  
  
“That’s a relief,” Michael said. “So we’re not filthy perverts for wanting to lay hands on your beautiful body?”  
  
“Only when you talk in flowery prose,” Lucas told him.  
  
“Agreed,” Sari said. “But kiss me again and I might reconsider.”  
  
“Gladly,” Michael said, doing so immediately. “Lucas was scared if we said anything, or did anything you’d like- run away to Canada, or something. And maybe sic Sam and Dean on us.”   
  
Sari thought back to the reason she had left them in the first place. “Mmmm, not so much. I guess I’m a pervert too.”  
  
“One big happy messed up family, huh?” Lucas said. “Er, or maybe not so much family…”   
  
“Dude, we hunt demons,” Michael corrected him. “I think this could be one of the least messed up things we do.”   
  
They lay together entwined on the bed, too tired to more than a bit of exploring and kissing. Sari relaxed in the warmth, sending the sights she had imprinted on the backs of her eyelid away to the dark corner of her mind, locking it away with the rest of her memories. Tomorrow she would have to grill the boys on how exactly they were supposed to accomplish the goal of closing the hellmouths forever. Maybe even later tonight she’d have to deal with those memories, and how she still felt physically sick at what they had had to do.   
  
But for now… she was finally safe and finally home again.  
  
 _MichaelLucasSari._


End file.
